


Darkness and Diamond

by Unsentimentalf



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-23
Updated: 2010-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can a mystery parcel drag Sherlock out of depression?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness and Diamond

John had resorted to chemical warfare.

He'd gone out this morning and bought a coffee percolator. Had settled in the sitting room with the heap of morning papers, as the fresh coffee smell spread throughout the building, reading and waiting.

It had taken a while, but eventually he'd heard the bedroom door, the bathroom door, and, far too soon, the bathroom door again. Glanced at his watch; one twenty. Better than yesterday, but not by much.

Sherlock covered the three steps from door to couch without glancing at his flatmate. Fell face down on the cushions, silent. A hand snaked out, fingers curled, and John contemplated it for a second.

He was not responsible for Sherlock. If the man was eating nothing, sleeping round the clock- if John was been unable to persuade him out of that dressing gown for five days, and he was pretty sure that Sherlock hasn't used the shower for a few days longer- he had resolved, early on, that he would not become responsible. Sherlock was his flatmate, not his family, not his partner, not his patient.

John could feel that resolve vanish, as it had done for the last week, watching the figure huddled under crumpled red stripes, legs protruding awkwardly as Sherlock curled himself away from the room. He slipped a mug of black coffee into the outstretched hand, saw the man lift his head to sip at it, eyes tight closed.

He was a doctor. The army had its share of severe depression cases. He had come too close to that himself, once, to dismiss it. Objectively, he knew that his flatmate should be under the care of someone more qualified in this field than him. Should be medicated. Should, probably, be in hospital. Depression this severe was all too often a killer. If Sherlock found the energy to act from somewhere...

This was not a soldier, or a GP's patient. This was Sherlock Holmes. John tried, and failed, to imagine him shuffling around a psychiatric ward. Sherlock had told him, when this started, when he could still be persuaded into talking, that it was his usual reaction to not having enough to do. John had believed him then, didn't entirely now. This time it had more of a cause.

Still, he'd tried. Two weeks reading several newspapers a day had left him vaguely sickened by politics and celebrities but with nothing that he could interest Sherlock in. He'd rung New Scotland Yard a few days ago, argued his way through to Lestrade. Sherlock had some time on his hands; was there anything that he might help with?

"Not," Lestrade had snarled, "unless he can tell me how to run my unit next year with 15% less cash. The country does not pay me just to stop Holmes getting bored. Tell him to go away. I'm budgeting."

Today there was something. It didn't look like much, but it was different. John hoped with painful intensity that it might work.

"There is," he started, gently, "a small parcel for you. No return address."

Long silence, then a tired croak. "Tell me."

John picked up the envelope, turning it in his hands, trying to see it as Sherlock might.

"Small white jiffy envelope. Looks like cheap stationery. Neat printed label- S Holmes, and the address. Nothing else written on it. Postmark- West End 3:30pm yesterday. Single first class stamp."

Pause, then that exhausted voice, humouring him. "Is the stamp on straight?"

"No." It was distinctly skew.

"Mmm."

"It's got a small box inside- should I open it?"

"Mmm."

John pulled out his Swiss army knife- he'd removed the paperknife from the writing desk some days ago. Slit the envelope along the seam carefully as he'd seen Sherlock do.

"White box. Embossed C on the lid." He pulled it back on the hinge, blinked a couple of times.

"It's a large blue jewel of some kind- sapphire, maybe? I wouldn't know. Pretty, anyway."

The not quite empty coffee mug was dropped over the edge of the couch. The hand stretched out again. "Envelope."

Sherlock propped himself up just enough to use his hands. He smoothed the paper over in his fingers, turned it over once.

"Hotel," he murmured, with an effort. Stretched out his hand again. John passed the open box over.

A very small snort. "Idiot. Lens."

On the desk. John handed it over with a glimmer of hope. Waited while Sherlock peered for several minutes.

"Blue diamond. Not sapphire. And an earring."

Now it was pointed out, John could see that it was a stud earring. He hadn't known that diamonds came in blue. "That sounds valuable."

"Somewhere between, " Sherlock's voice was still slow, still rough, but he was talking. "two fifty and four hundred thousand. Near perfect cut, rich colour."

"Ah. I must get the contents insurance increased." Even after the last few months John was still capable of being moderately stunned. "Who the hell is sending you a quarter of a million pounds in jewellery in a jiffy envelope, Sherlock? And why?"

"I have no idea." Sherlock lifted his head to look directly at John for the first time. Managed a faint smile. "Shall we find out?"

 

Food first. John insisted. Sherlock didn't argue. He didn't eat much, either, though he obediently showered and dressed. This was not Sherlock Holmes back, not yet, but John didn't expect miracles. If he had found something to keep his interest, even a little, that was a start.

"Why 'hotel'?" John was genuinely curious, as well as keeping him talking.

Sherlock sighed, made an effort. "Label neat, stamp crooked. Two different people. The sender bought a cheap printer and labels as well as the envelope- tiny spatters of ink on the label, first time the cartridge was used. He wanted to stay anonymous. But he forgot the stamp, so he gave it to someone else to post. Most likely hotel concierge"

"It could have been a post office counter," John objected.

"Postmark. No-one would queue in a packed post office around midday just for a first class stamp. Besides, they are a little neater, in general."

"So we need to look for someone staying in a West End hotel?"

Sherlock didn't drag his eyes upwards from his plate. "Not much chance of tracing them from that."

The chances might be slim, but John still found himself traipsing around West End hotels that afternoon, while Sherlock propped himself up in front of the laptop. No-one remembered a white jiffy envelope, but then no-one had any reason to. He got back around 6pm, tired and empty handed, to find Sherlock asleep on the couch.

Two steps forward, one back, John told himself. He invaded Mrs Hudson's kitchen, made a curry, brought a tray up and shook Sherlock awake. It was hard to rouse him; hard to talk as he'd done for weeks, as if he were calm and cheerful, with his fingers curled around the man's limp shoulder, dragging him upwards. The glimmer of the old Sherlock that he'd seen earlier had made this passivity worse to bear.

Sherlock ate a few reluctant mouthfuls. John ate little more, watching him, worrying. Direct questions didn't get a response, but Sherlock was not the only person who could be manipulative.

"There must be another half of the pair. What if it has gone missing and the sender of this one wants you to find it?"

"Use your eyes, John!"

It was a poor shadow of Sherlock's normal cutting criticism. but it was something, and John couldn't remember the last time Sherlock had used his name. He carefully didn't grin as the box was shoved unceremoniously towards him. The slit in the white satin was clearly not large enough for two earrings. Something he had noticed earlier.

"You knew that." Sherlock sounded petulant, caught out, still tired.

"So tell me something I don't know."

Sherlock sighed. "Right now I've got nothing. I've found three dozen references to blue stones of this weight any of which, or none, might be this one. No reports of theft or fraud. Nothing."

"Have you thought about why it might have been sent?"

"Speculation's worse than useless in the absence of facts." That was almost crisp.

"So how do we get facts?"

"Tomorrow," Sherlock sounded weary again, "we'll talk to some jewellers. Now I'm going back to bed."

John nodded. Wishing him good night seemed inappropriate. "I hope you sleep well."

Sherlock looked back at him, eyes dark. "So do I."

John lay awake for a long time that night, imagining Sherlock staring at the ceiling as he was doing, those long limbs tossing amidst the bedclothes. Remembering the emptiness that he'd felt when the danger and the drama was finished and all that was left was learning to live in the ordinary world again. Understanding made it harder to watch, he thought, not easier. For the hundredth time he wondered if Sherlock's enemy watched the man suffer from a distance. If he was laughing.

Eventually he got out of bed, walked quietly down to the sitting room. Turned on the laptop.

"Sherlock" he wrote, "has found a new puzzle to keep him happy. Looks like we are going to be busy for a while."

That should stop the distant, imagined laughter in its tracks. He slept, afterwards.

 

The next morning Sherlock appeared, dressed and shaved, at nine thirty, but with yesterday's hollows still dark under his eyes. He waved an irritated hand at John's attempts to feed him breakfast. "Later. We have people to see."

'People' were the sort of Covent Garden jewellers without a window full of wedding rings and christening presents. The first three examined the earring closely, but none of them could say that they recognised it, or make any suggestion as to where it came from. The fourth, however, gave a cursory look at the jewel, was far more interested in its container.

"Cartes of Amsterdam" he said, definitely. "I bought a ring at auction from them recently, came in an identical box to this one. That's what the C is for. Cartes."

John stayed long enough to thank the man profusely before chasing after Sherlock, catching him just as he stopped a taxi.

Sherlock leaned forward to the driver. "Heathrow."

John pulled him back onto the seat, leaned forward himself.

"Make that Baker Street."

Faced down Sherlock's protests. "I haven't got my passport with me, and if we get a flight now we'll arrive too late to do anything today. We can book flights to Amsterdam for early tomorrow."

Part of him wanted desperately to have Sherlock take the lead. To follow the man as he hared off on the chase, all focus and brilliance, as if there could be nothing wrong in the entire world except the odd maniacal murderer and bad tempered police sergeant. But he didn't entirely trust this newly kindled light in his friend's eyes, not with the rings still harsh around them. They would do this slowly, at a pace that he calculated that the sick man could tolerate.

Sherlock took over when they got back home, anyway. His fingers flicked over the computer keys.

"Passport number?"

John read it out. "What time are you booking it for?"

Sherlock turned the screen so that he could see. 8:30am. The man still seemed reluctant to talk much; that seemed to John the most painful of symptoms, for Sherlock.

He caught sight of the total at the top; "How much? That has to be a mistake. We're only going across the Channel!"

"3% below the average price for next-day booking."

John frowned at the screen again.

"You're booking business class, Sherlock! It's only an 80 minute flight!"

"I only travel business class." A hint of his old arrogance.

"You may only travel business class, but I can't afford it. Four hundred pounds for a one-way ticket!"

"Don't fuss, John. I'll put it on expenses. Anyone who can afford to post diamond and platinum earrings across London will doubtless be able to foot the bill for a couple of airfares."

Whether the mysterious sender would, of course, was another matter. Still, John let it go. He was vaguely curious about first class flights anyway, and it was Sherlock's credit card. Sherlock's finances were a complete mystery to him but it didn't bounce, this time.

Still only late afternoon, and Sherlock was looking worn. John picked a DVD from the pile of unwatched acquisitions. "Sit down." he said firmly.

"I've sat around for too long already." But Sherlock nevertheless settled on the couch next to him. "If this is science fiction nonsense, I'm going to bed."

"Something more up your street, I hope. You did say that you've never seen any Hitchcock."

And for an hour and a half John sat back and watched Sherlock- his Sherlock- analyse, dissect, shout, contradict and be, to all intents and purposes, entirely caught up in the mystery of the lady vanishing.

"Utter nonsense," Sherlock declared as the credits rolled. "One look at the gauge of the railway would have given the entire thing away." But he seemed pleased with himself, and John thought that for that alone the film was worth more than a dozen blue gemstones.

The curry reheated nicely and they finished it up between them. John leaned back in the armchair with a mug of coffee and tried hard to concentrate on a lecture on diamonds. Last night hadn't been the first this week to be missing large chunks of sleep. He found himself just taking comfort in the sound of life in that voice, losing the meaning.

"Go to bed, John!" The tone was amused. "I prefer my audiences conscious. And not snoring."

"I was not snoring!" John protested, but he drained the cold mug, set it down. "Don't stay up, Sherlock. We have to be out by five in the morning."

"I'll stay up a while. I need to try to remember how to think."

That caught at John as he reached the door. God. That, from Sherlock Holmes. He turned back.

"It will all come back, Sherlock. Give yourself time."

"I don't have time!" Sherlock's hand slammed on the couch cushions. "He won't wait politely while I convalesce. I don't know why he's waited this long. It makes no sense."

And that was the heart of it. John took a breath, tackled it head on.

"Do you think the diamond is to do with Moriarty?"

Sherlock shook his head, reluctantly. "No. He wouldn't repeat himself. We're done with puzzles."

"So it's nearly four months now. Not even a rumour."

"You think he's dead." Sherlock was standing now, looking at John with sharp eyes.

"Two unidentifiable bodies. You know that. It's got to be likely, surely."

"At least four snipers in that place. He was no closer to the explosion than I was."

"Yeah." John raised his eyebrows. "And you were lucky. Two days in a burns unit. Hardly scot free. He could easily have been killed."

"He wasn't."

Said with the absolute assurance that was Sherlock's trademark and John wasn't buying it at all. He'd known, as certain as Sherlock, better than the medics, that his army career wasn't over. The world had failed to adjust itself in the face of his assurance, and here he was.

Still, tonight wasn't the time for an argument, with Sherlock's eyes a little too bright against a face still far too pale for healthy. He wished the other man good night and went upstairs.

 

The early morning taxi ride was silent. John was struggling to stay awake, wishing he'd got up early enough for a coffee. Sherlock seemed content to watch London slide away past the window.

Eventually Sherlock spoke.

"It is possible that he is dead. However I would expect that his death would cause more ripples than this. There is no evidence of major transfers of power in the criminal world, nor of fragmentation of operations."

John looked round at him. "That makes sense."

"Thank you." Sherlock was amused, at John, possibly at himself.

"So what is he doing?"

"I don't know."

The silence resumed for the rest of the journey to the airport.

 

Business class on a small plane was unexciting. Wider seats, nicer cups of tea. John felt that he was hardly getting his extra £300 worth. Still, it did mean that he could sit next to Sherlock. Glancing back at the crowded plane, he was rather glad that some poor sod hadn't drawn that short straw.

Sherlock spent much of the journey turning the box over and over, as if there were more to be gleaned from it.

When he spoke, he sounded more irritated than tired. "If this is a message, it's both expensive and totally obscure."

"What else could it be?"

"There are several possibilities. It might have been sent to me for safe-keeping, or so that I could return it to its rightful owner. It might be sent as evidence of some sort. Far too many alternatives to be worth speculating."

John couldn't help noticing that Sherlock seemed to be doing that anyway. It confirmed him in his suspicion that this wasn't work, yet; more just distraction from the man's demons. The old Sherlock would have been content to wait for more data before fretting about the answer. This time Sherlock just wanted to be kept occupied.

 

Sherlock strode through Schipol airport with confidence, straight to the taxi rank. John winced at the quoted fare. There was a perfectly good train link. On expenses, he told himself and got in.

The polite lady manning the front desk at Cartes had no intention of telling anyone about their confidential customers. Sherlock placed a call from her telephone, talked briefly in fluent Dutch. Twenty minutes later a policeman arrived with a piece of paper and the polite lady admitted defeat, passed them onto a man in an expensive suit and flawless English and his computer records.

The earring had been made here, yes. It was commissioned by a Saudi prince and delivered three months ago. The price? 350,000 euros. John did a quick conversion, smiled at Sherlock's look of minor triumph. The prince lived in Monaco; these were the contact details that they had been given. Of course Mr Holmes could have the use of the room and telephone. They would arrange refreshments.

Sherlock looked at the phone with distinct reluctance. Since two days ago he was barely communicating in grunts John took pity on him. "Tell me what to say and I'll do it."

It turned out to be complicated, but eventually John got somewhere through sheer persistence and the repeated use of the name of one of Sherlock's previous clients. The prince, naturally, was unavailable but his finance manager would give them a few minutes, if Mr Holmes could present himself in person at the office at 1pm the next day.

"Monaco, then." Sherlock was in his element, seemed as if he was working at last. There was a trail, and he was on it.

Monaco wasn't so easy to get to, if you didn't have your own jet. Sherlock and John ended up in a twin room in a Nice hotel for the night, with tickets for the helicopter service next day. They ate at frightening expensive restaurant and Sherlock told improbable stories about gemstones, while John just enjoyed being an audience again, swept along for the ride. Neither of them mentioned Moriarty.

"The question is whether they will tell us who he sold it to." Back at the hotel Sherlock was playing with his phone. Researching, John told himself. It still looked like playing to him.

"He sold it?"

Sherlock gave him a full powered withering look. "You can do better than that, John. None of his people were interested in how we got it. If he'd given it as a gift, they'd be curious. If it had been stolen they'd be all over us. So, sold. Three weeks ago he cleared some of his more urgent debts; not lucky at cards it seems, nor in love. His latest girlfriend has been defrauding him for weeks."

Getting undressed that night, John took a surreptitious view of Sherlock's naked torso. A little too thin; signs of weight lost too fast. The burns still scars, not much fainter than last time he'd seen them. Being Sherlock Holmes was hard on a body, harder still on the mind. Still, he'd heal back good looking. John could have used a bit of that luck.

"What does my doctor think, then." Sherlock stood up for him, turned round. John hoped that he wasn't blushing. "I'm not your doctor."

"No-one else is." Sherlock was serious now. "What more could any doctor have done?"

They hadn't spoken before of the weeks that John had spent looking after his- patient? No, friend. John didn't want to talk about it now; too soon. Sherlock was far from healed.

"Well, then, your doctor thinks you should eat a little more and dash around Europe a little slower."

"And," Sherlock added, "put some clothes on. For a doctor you are remarkably easily disturbed by bodies."

It had not been something that had ever bothered John before. But Sherlock was a friend, before a patient, looked still vulnerable, scarred by what they had both been through. It was that personal connection that made it difficult to regard him dispassionately. He finished changing, turned out the light. Habit, to wish Sherlock a good night; it seemed odd with the man just a couple of feet away.

 

Monaco was duller than John had imagined, but it was at least sunny. The prince's finance manager was young, brisk, inclined to be unhelpful. Sherlock took her at a rapid pace through the conclusions to some of his internet researches about the girlfriend and she excused herself, left the room, her hands shaking slightly.

When she returned she was carrying a paper file and was more composed. "I have brought forensic investigators in and the information will be put in front of the police shortly. The prince is indebted to you, Mr Holmes. All the information that we have regarding the private auction is in here, including a memory stick of the finance records."

John thanked her gravely. Sherlock already had the papers out over the table.

 

There was very little information. The earring had been put up for private sale via an exclusive jewellers in Paris. The buyer, 25 days ago, had been anonymous. Payment had been made via...

"Swiss bank account." Sherlock sighed.

"Switzerland then?" John was almost enthusiastic about another journey. Had to be better than sitting in the flat waiting for Sherlock to starve himself to death.

"A waste of time and money. An Interpol warrant wouldn't get the identity of the account holder out of a Swiss bank. Our chances are very small indeed."

"Does that mean that the buyer was a crook?"

"It means that he was reasonably well off and valued his privacy. Which we already knew."

"He might have sold it on to someone else."

"He might. But multiplying entities purposelessly does us no good, since the buyer would appear to have been equally anonymous."

They went home. It took most of the day and another hefty dent in Sherlock's credit card. No messages had arrived, nothing. John woke early, worried that Sherlock would have fallen back into lethargy but he came into the sitting room around 10am, in dressing gown and an apparently determined mood.

"What else can we do?" John was hoping that Sherlock had some ideas, because he had none.

"Think." Sherlock turned the earring around in his fingers. "When no more facts can be obtained, there is nothing to do but to deduce what one can from what one has got."

Thinking was a long business. Sherlock lay back in the armchair, watching the light sparkle off the blue stone, for the rest of that day. John went food shopping, came back, cooked a rather good mushroom pasta that Sherlock totally ignored. He sat down for a while at his blog, but was put off by the thought of who might read it today, so he ended up writing just a brief description of Nice, which he had rather liked, without saying why they had gone there.

He was just thinking about bed, reluctantly deciding that he'd better stay up with Sherlock tonight, when the man spoke.

"Why would you send me an earring, John?"

John thought about it. Couldn't imagine why on earth he would, said so.

"Why would you send one to someone else, then?"

John had given girls jewellery occasionally. Nothing expensive; not diamonds. Small, pretty things, twenty, forty pounds at most.

"A gift, I suppose. To please them." He thought a little more, "Because I thought they would look good in it."

Sherlock grinned, hugely. Pulled the back off the earring, and with one quick motion pierced the earring through his right earlobe. John winced in sympathy, swore.

"For God's sake, Sherlock, haven't you heard of disinfectant!"

"How do I look?"

"Like a peacock with imminent septicaemia. I'll get the Dettol."

Returning, he shook his head at Sherlock's delight. "What is this proving, exactly?"

"Nothing." Sherlock was tilting his head to admire the jewel in the mirror.

"Come on, there must be some point. There's always some point, with you."

"Never overlook the obvious, John."

The obvious. "You think it's a gift? To you?"

"I know it."

"Someone sent you jewellery worth hundreds of thousands of pounds because they thought it would suit you? Who the hell would..."

He stopped. "Bloody hell. No."

"Yes."

There was a light in Sherlock's eyes that had been missing for months and John's temper was suddenly, unexpectedly, lost. The near empty bottle of disinfectant hit the wall, shattered in fragments and stink.

"Four sodding months. You could have died. And all he needs to do is send you a bloody diamond and everything's fine again! Sometimes, Sherlock, you are so fucking cheap."

An expressionless face watched him in the mirror, earlobe sparkling blue.

"Do we have any more disinfectant?"

"There's another bottle." He sighed, went to get it, and a clean glass, and a cloth for Sherlock's bleeding ear. He should know better than to expect a sane human reaction.

Sherlock sat down, poured the disinfectant, pulled the earring free and dipped it. A little blood ran slowly down his earlobe.

"He's waiting," he said, calmly, "to see what I do with it. I expect that he thinks I'll wear it. That's what I would probably do, if things were different."

"What things?" John was cleaning up the ear.

"I know what a diamond is worth. That's easy. There are other things that are more nebulous, harder to value accurately. That doesn't mean that one can't make an estimate."

He pulled away from John's cloth. "Sit down."

"Why?" John was already moving into the vacated arm chair, habit.

"Keep still."

Ouch. "What the..." John's hand was up to his left ear. "Bloody hell, Sherlock, what did you do that for?"

"Leave it. It will stop stinging in a minute."

"Why the hell did you do it?"

Sherlock had his phone out. For a few minutes he moved around, taking pictures of John, completely ignoring John's protests and questions.

"That one." He held the screen out for John to see. "Put it on your blog." John, looking distinctly unimpressed, head slightly to one side. And the slightest sliver of diamond showing on the left.

"No-one else will see it. Most people don't see the unlikely. He will."

"And what is he meant to conclude?"

"That I'm not quite as cheap as you think me."

"Hmm." John unclipped the stone, dipped it again into the disinfectant, held it out to Sherlock. "Your present."

"Yours."

"Don't mess around, Sherlock."

"And when have you ever known me mess around? It's a gift."

"What am I meant to do with it?"

"Sell it, I imagine. It's a little gaudy for your taste."

John frowned down at it. "You wouldn't mind, if I sold your present?"

"Why should I? It's legally yours, just as it was legally mine a few minutes ago." A smile. "Come on, John. Don't look so worried. It's just money."

John raised an eyebrow, turned to his laptop to post the picture. The earring, in its box, went in his pocket. However outrageous, this was not the sort of thing that it was worth trying to argue Sherlock out of.

Next day they went back to the fourth jeweller. John let Sherlock do the negotiating; he wandered instead around some of the items on display. Stood for a while contemplating a cushion of platinum studs.

"That one." Sherlock was over his shoulder, pointing. A pair of neat, flat hexagons. Unfussy. Smart. John nodded. If he had been going to wear an earring, he imagined that one like that would do very nicely.

"We'll take one of those as well." The jeweller nodded. John started to protest. Stopped. After all, it had been a gift from Sherlock. He imagined that that wouldn't happen very often.

"Both of them," he said firmly. Stared down Sherlock. "If I can do this, you damn well can too. You think gifts come without obligations?"

"That," Sherlock said, seriously, "will carry a very definite message. One not without considerable danger for you."

"I'm more concerned with whether it's accurate." The middle of a jeweller's display room was not the place for this conversation, but right now it seemed as appropriate as any other. Moriarty was back to plague Sherlock, the one thing needed to pull him back into the world; John had to know whether the man whose life he'd thrown himself into trying to save would still need him.

Sherlock was intent on him; he lifted his chin to meet that gaze.

"Not all the conclusions drawn will be accurate. But insofar as it signifies a degree of partnership, yes."

Sherlock was right, as always. This was going to be seriously misunderstood. And it probably wasn't going to help John's love-life any, although people were odd so it might do less damage than expected. Oh god, Lestrade. Mycroft. Mrs Hudson. His whole family.

What the hell. He grinned up at Sherlock. "It's going to seriously piss off Moriarty, isn't it?"

"I do hope so."

The jeweller had brought out the earrings, and a couple of ear swabs. Sherlock was tall, but John had no trouble reaching that far. His own earlobe was swollen and sore from yesterday's piercing, but Sherlock's long, cool fingers were deft. John took the extraordinarily huge cheque and a deep breath.

"Let's do this then." As they walked out into the Covent Garden sunshine John glanced up at his taller companion. Sherlock's right ear, his left. Not, with Sherlock, an accident, though the significance eluded him.

Damn, but he felt self conscious, just walking down the street. It was going to be worse with people he knew; people they knew. For a moment he wanted to call the whole thing off. They didn't need to do this. Just flatmates; just friends. Donovan had told him that Sherlock didn't have friends. He didn't think that this was really what she had meant.

He glanced up at Sherlock again. Remembered the man in the dressing gown curled up, eyes closed against the world. That was not, he was sure, a once off occurrence. Sherlock needed, not a lover, not a friend, not a doctor, but a partner, to see him through those worst of times, to share the good ones. John lifted his hand to his aching earlobe. That was what it meant, no more, no less. Whether the world understood or not, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were together, from now on.

THE END


End file.
